WRITING

I took the Blue Line over to Division and Milwaukee. Thought it be a better way to avoid the Robs that were driving the taxis forgetting that one worked the station and another drove the train. Trying to avoid Robs in this city is like trying to avoid getting wet while swimming. Impossible. And Dumb. Then again I’ve never been accused of being the brightest.

I located the place pretty easily. A door in the middle of a back alley, just like Theresa said. Lots of shady characters coming and going. I gotta hand it to the Mob, when you own a town you don’t have to be particularly secretive.

I staked the place out from a bench across the street. The sky had finally opened up and the rain beat down on me hard like a school yard bully convinced I was holding out lunch money. I refused to pay. I actually like the rain, in a filthy city caked over with secrets and lies a good hard rain will churn things up.

I knew it was a dark and stormy night! Just not at the beginning. Sorry, I thought I was going crazy for a second.

​ I came to with heavy eyes as a couple brutes dragged me down an alleyway, and through a metal door, by my arms. “Where are you taking me?” I protested, watching a drab carpeted floor go by beneath me. Naturally, I was ignored, which was fine because having the answer probably wouldn’t have improved the situation. Next thing I knew; I was dropped to a hardwood floor at the base of a poker table. When I went to push myself up, a stiff boot dug into my back. “What do you want us to do with him?” A goon asked. A croaking voice at the card table responded as I watched a foot tap impatiently on the ground. “I’m in the middle of a game here.” From the shoes I saw below a tattered blue tablecloth, four men were positioned at the table. Other than that, all I could see was broken cabinetry and dust bunnies. A short pause followed the croaking man’s response, as if goon one and goon two didn’t want to press the issue. “I know that, boss. It’s just that we got to do somethin’ with him, and-” “Shoot him,” the boss cut him off.

My father had passed away when I was 9. He was an entertainer, if you could even call it that. He devoted his life to the art of Mime; idolizing people like Samuel Avital, Les Bubb, and of course Marcel Marceau. It was his passion and my shame. I hated it. I hated him for doing it and because of that we were never close. But when he was savagely beat at the park where he performed for tips by a group of then high school boys something changed within me.

​“Where does evil come from?” At precisely 9:00 AM, the professor began his lecture with this unusual question. Even more unusual was the chalkboard behind him, which read “Introduction to Astronomy”, to assure students that they were in the right class. An uneasy silence filled the room, as no one knew how to respond. “Consider this the course’s first lesson: I do not ask rhetorical questions.” The professor warned. “If you wish to proceed with the class that you, or more likely, your parents, paid so dearly for, then you will give me answers.” They all desperately hoped that someone else would speak up, but no one did. “Come now”, the professor continued, “Surely one among you is devout. Does the church no longer preach about the Devil? Or perhaps it is God who created evil? He did bring everything into existence, after all.” The professor could see some of the students scowl. His lips curled into a smile. “I can see that claim doesn’t sit well with some of you. Is anyone so bold as to object?” “I am.” A young man, clearly a freshman, spoke out. “Very well. Do you believe that God created everything that exists?” the professor asked. “Y-yes”, the student stammered, his bravado now waning. “And it is clear that evil exists.” The professor said, “Therefore, it follows that God created evil. QED” The student sat down, dejectedly. He knew the professor’s type. There was no point in trying to argue. Another student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a question professor?"

The summer heat beat down on us like the business end of a sledgehammer. A sledgehammer that was hot and muggy and promised a coming storm. The air was so thick it was more of a swim than a walk. The sticky air caused sweat to trickle down our faces and Theresa’s tank top cling to her in all the right places so it wasn’t all bad. We strolled slowly under the elevated train tracks to keep us dry from the eventual monsoon.

“Last time we did business you stiffed me, Jacobs.” She said."I’d like to stiff you twice more and then make you breakfast.” I threw her my most charming smile.“Shut up.” She punched my arm but couldn’t quite hide the smile playing across her lips. I still got it.“You look like shit, Rex. You finally piss off too many of the right people?” She asked. I tried to avoid all the Right People but in a city like Chicago that was next to impossible.“Chicago P.D.” I grunted.

“The voice,” I muttered confusedly, “the voice. . . It wants me back.” A small stream of water was flowing before my hands, up the sidewalk, and into a cup lying in the gutter. No matter how much ran into it, it never appeared to fill.The woman, with tears in her eyes, asked gently what voice I was referring to. I don’t believe I responded. I simply remained on my knees. Eventually, she saw fit to lift me up and walk me to a small coffee shop across the street: The Horsehead Café.Once we entered, I started to feel myself again. With each step we took toward a booth, the voice faded further and further from my mind.No sooner than we sat down, a waiter was standing over us to take our order.“Coffee, black,” I stated, plainly, before losing myself in thought. The woman’s order was mere background noise. She was a static hiss droning on behind a memory playing in my head.

This path of light we follow has been swallowed gushing red,This urgent voice inside our head is placed to guide us in its stead.We march into the mountains of darkness with heads bowed low,We march into the echoes of lost time with perfect dying cadence.They have taken our sight and the pits of our eyes are sallow,Stinking dripping holes of bloodless blindness;And yet we do not know we sleep with consorts of our enemies,Their breaths fetid and wreaking in the arms of our bedrolls.

This path of ardent brilliance has illuminated our ignorance,This path of pure faith has enlightened our disbelief.Our pickaxes hollow the rock of our own tombs,Our swords clatter against armor; a mimic ring of our own doom.They have taken our King Alochnar and tortured him every sin,Running the blades wet with our blood warm against his skin;And yet we do not stand to fight nor even stand at all,Their words are silky spider’s web and we dare not stand at all.

Mill Town is a huge homeless camp set up right in the middle of the city. When nearly every human lost their jobs, losing their homes wasn’t too far behind. Mill Town was one of the only somewhat nice things the city government has done for the poor in this city, let them set up camp and leave them alone. Well, mostly alone.

I walked up the old stone steps and past a giant piece of reflective ‘art.’ Some called it a bean, some called it a cloud, I called it annoying. I looked out over Mill Town. Row after row of cheap, hastily assembled tents. A few fires dotted the landscape. People were cooking while they still could before the rains set in and by the look of the rapidly darkening sky the rains were coming in fast.

History told me this used to be a very nice park; that tourists flocked here and took dumb photos with their dumb phones and rich people had picnics of wine and cheese. They had named it Millennium Park at the turn of the twenty first century… Creative. Now we just call it Mill Town. The refuge of the poor in the shadows of over priced shops and sky scrapers.

I stepped out of the police station into the muggy summer night. The murder had given the case and my brain a new wrinkle. I had to rethink things. My prime suspect was dead and his wife had just given me a ton of money. This whole thing smelled like a foul smelling set up. And I don’t like being played like a sucker.

“Would you like me to signal a cab for you, sir?” a big dumb Rob painted yellow and black stood in my way. A walking taxi advert. Stupid hunk of plastic, servos and pneumatics thinks it can talk to me? I’d rather walk anyway.“Screw off, Robbie.” I barked back at the toy. The dumb thing would probably take me literally and find some screws to pull out. Stupid Robs.

I could’ve been nicer, but I was in a mood. My face hurt and I was back at square one and I had barely gotten to square two. I needed to get my bearings, ask a few questions to someone who knows a thing or two about a thing or two.

​I hoofed it back to my office to change before taking a trip to Mill Town.

The sign lived up to it’s name. I’d entered a complex almost as filthy as the alley outside. The smell of stale booze and stagnant water hung in the air. The hallway ahead was lined with apartment doors, some open, some not, and garbage was the its most abundant resource. Grocery bags, shopping carts, lawn chairs, you name it; it filled the building. Light fixtures flickered, flies gathered around garbage bags, and a crooked bulletin board to my left had one pinned note reading, “Community Outreach Tomorrow”. I took a few steps further and passed an open apartment, their T.V. left on to some cooking show discussing sugar free baking recipes. From what I saw in passing, a man wearing only underwear lay face up on the floor, unmoving.​I entered a stairwell just ahead and made my way downstairs, passing moldy children’s toys and metal buckets catching water from leaky ceilings. Before too long, I hit the bottom floor where sat a young woman in a dark green hooded coat and filthy grey sweatpants. I had been in the building before. Usually, a second staircase waited at the bottom to take you back up, but this place wasn’t always that predictable.